Monday Maunderings

For my Monday Words Arranged posts, I’ll wander about aimfully among some of the news items I’ve come across over the past week that have led me to mumble and grumble about the state of the Unseen.

To whit:

Chris Hedges’ essay about the importance of our cultural heritage is one of the most truthful and significant essays I’ve read in a very long time. Please read this and think about it.

Chris Hedges: The Great Forgetting

America’s refusal to fund and sustain its intellectual and cultural heritage means it has lost touch with its past, obliterated its understanding of the present, crushed its capacity to transform itself through self-reflection and self-criticism, and descended into a deadening provincialism. Ignorance and illiteracy come with a cost. The obsequious worship of technology, hedonism and power comes with a cost. The primacy of emotion and spectacle over wisdom and rational thought comes with a cost. And we are paying the bill.

The following is a significant paper demonstrating that the global rate of sea level rise is decreasing, not increasing as some, including NOAA insist. This is an important data set for interpretation of the relationship between global average surface temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentration.

Rate of Sea Level Rise: Predictions vs. Measurements

Clearly, the more-rabid-than-the-IPCC-crowd has it all wrong when it comes to both sea level and climate, for as Boretti concludes, “the oceans are truly the best indicator of climate,” and what they suggest is not compatible with what those alarmed about climate change continually claim.

Bill Moyers is, of course, the dean of American culture. This essay tells how we made it through the 1930s through mutual aid and community.

The Fight For America’s Soul

One side pits winners and losers against each other in a race for the American Dream, while the other wonders what might be possible if we work together to form communities, build schools and create a culture of mutual respect.